Chewing Gum Gone!

With funding from City Health Care Partnership we are delivering 'Chewing Gum Gone' with groups of young people, all of whom suffer from some degree of dyslexia.

Why this project is important

It tackles problems

Having dyslexia can cause anxiety, anger, low self-esteem and depression, which in young people often manifests itself at home, after hiding their learning disability throughout the day at school. This is mainly due to the increased pressure to do well and live up to expectations. Research has shown that these feelings of inferiority develop when young and as a result during puberty it becomes extremely difficult to help the child develop a positive self–image. Our project is specifically designed to benefit young people by developing their life-skills and building self-esteem at this critical age. We have a fully qualified sessional tutor to deliver the workshops who is himself, dyslexic and we feel this will benefit the young people involved as they will be able to relate to him and also see how success can be achieved regardless of any learning barriers.

It's fun, and rewarding

Through this project we will have used creativity and fun to highlight the very real problem of chewing gum being discarded on our streets. We feel, however, that this is secondary to the emotional benefits this project will bring the young people, and the parents/guardians of those involved. This project is rewarding, it gives a chance for young people with special educational needs the chance to learn meaningful skills, through a fun project. The project compliments the excellent support work done by SEN teachers, and the project gives the young people a better balance of fun, enjoyable challenges vs the tasks they find more challenging and the effects this can have.